


There is a world

by everythingispoetry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, BAMF JARVIS, BAMF Tony, Bot Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Friendship, Hurt Tony, Miscarriage, Protective Bots, Recovery, Slut Shaming, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingispoetry/pseuds/everythingispoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apparently, being part of a superhero team means you are not allowed to have a family, because you are a liability. So when Toni finds out that she is pregnant and decides to keep the child, she is all alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is a world

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE note that this story deals with miscarriage. If this is triggering for you, you might not want to read it.
> 
> Fill for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/13316.html?thread=31889412#t31889412) at avengerkink. 
> 
>  
> 
> Title from Neil Young's amazing album Harvest.

 

 

 

_  
Looking for another place_

_Somewhere else to be_

_Looking for another chance_

_To ride into the sun_

 

 

It isn’t an one-night stand, not really, although it isn’t much more either; they have sex exactly three times within the two weeks Ryan is in the USA before going back to England. Toni has been a good girl since the dying thing, and she hasn’t been featured in half-naked/drunk in any gossip magazine for almost two years now. They meet on a science conference where both of them are to give a speech, so when they are done with talking and pretending they care what the audition thinks, Ryan asks her out for a few drinks, she accepts and they end up in bed, talking about quantum mechanics until the very moment they are both undressed.

Ryan tells her he has a fiancée, what only makes Toni smirk because no, she isn’t interested in long term, she’s never been and probably never will. By the time he is boarding his plane, four hours after crawling out of Toni’s bed, she’s crouched in a weird position under a suspended Iron Woman armor, fixing some wiring around the left elbow that hasn’t been working well enough, music blasting in the workshop on a crazy level, like always.

The next few weeks pass like all other: work, work, work, drinks and two men she likes, suiting up and saving the world, which seems to be a once-a-month thing recently. She spends some time in the SI R&D department, overseeing the work of her favorite engineers, flies to Malibu to get some sun that is too scarce in NY in early spring. S.H.I.E.L.D. asks her to come up with new engines for quinjets and what is ridiculous since they are not her tech and she refuses to play by halves so she prepares a project of an entirely new jets that are going to be most awesome thing ever. Fury throws a tantrum about how expensive it will be, but she says it’s that or nothing, so he gives in finally. Toni works hard on the project, by the time the prototype is built she’s pretty exhausted, but it’s perfect. She leaves making more of the jets to Fury’s goons and stays for two days in the apartment, working on the newest armor, trying to get the grease out of her nails, drinking her best scotch and nursing a constant headache. 

Then suddenly she notices it’s the end of April when a hot week hits and when the Avengers are called to yet another dumb robot attack. Toni gets up from a sofa where she fell asleep sometime in the early morning, she’s feeling queasy and nauseous what is an obvious consequence of eating a weird Chinese takeout the previous day, but there is no time for whining so she puts on the armor, flies to the 5th Ave Mansion where the other Avengers and some S.H.I.E.L.D has been staying – not that she needed the house, really, and she kind of hated it anyway – and then even follows most of Rogers’ painfully good-natured commands, just because she’s too tired to argue.

Everything goes smoothly right until the moment when Toni suddenly feels a sharp, strong pain in her stomach that makes her suck in a quick breath and miss the nearest bot, so it manages to throw her around a few times before she fires from the repulsor and brings it down, just in time to narrowly avoid another robot and for a minute or two she’s _very_ busy, ignoring orders and questions because she doesn’t have fucking time to talk, come on; she ends it with a few blasts in a quick succession that free her from the swarming machines, a few minutes later it’s all over anyway.

‘Just how irresponsible can you be?!’ Rogers shouts into her ear when they are starting the debrief, his voice is loud and creaky and seems to echo inside her brain, so she only snorts in response and shakes her head slightly, trying to push the ache away. ‘What was _that_?’

‘Oh, it’s just the suit not responding for a fraction of second, those things happen when the robots have devices for disturbing electromagnetic waves, but hey, you wouldn’t know since you fight with your perfect pretty body –’

‘Shut up, Stark,’ Rogers cuts in angrily. Toni smirks tiredly and moves to sit in her usual chair. (The robots had the devices indeed but Iron Woman was far above those  toys; not that Toni was going to admit to Rogers of all people that she missed because she was in pain.) ‘Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

She doesn’t dignify the comment with an answer. A moment later Fury comes in and the game begins anew; Toni is just a bit more angry and snarky than usually since she doesn’t have the patience to deal with their attitudes.

In the end, the Avengers go back to the Mansion and Toni flies to the tower, takes a quick shower and goes to sleep even though it’s only later afternoon.

***

When she wakes up it is sometime around 3 a.m. which means she was asleep for much longer than usually. The headache isn’t really gone, and as soon as she sits up on the bed she feels the nausea again and takes a few swift paces to get to the bathroom before throwing up. Which is suspicious, because this time no, she hasn’t eaten anything weird and she isn’t even hung over.

After brushing her teeth and drinking a glass of cold milk, what surprisingly helps with the queasiness, she goes down to the workshop and does some light work for the rest of the day. Pepper comes in the evening but Toni’s all covered in grease and sweat, so she only leaves some documents that need signing on the desk and reminds Toni about a board meeting next Tuesday where she really has to appear.

***

The next day is good, Toni takes the newest Mark IX out for a test flight and it runs beautifully. She plans to finish some details before celebrating with a few colorful drinks, but never manages to do that as she falls asleep by the workbench, only to wake up two hours later with hurting neck and a possible imprint of some wires on her face, and walks half-consciously to the bed to fall asleep again. When she wakes up, she runs to the bathroom again, and as she sits all sweaty and achy on the cold floor, she makes a mental note saying that something is seriously wrong here.

‘Suggestions, J?’ she asks wearily after she’s showered and dressed.

‘I can match your symptoms with common diagnosis, ma’am. Vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, headache, fatigue –’

‘Throw in some bloating there, J,’ she murmurs, but the A.I. doesn’t have to say anything because she fucking realizes what she’s missed.

Toni’s vision suddenly swims, and she’s glad she’s sitting down because _fuck_ , she is supposed to be a genius, no? She is supposed to be clever and observant.

‘I’ve been talking the pill, no?’ she asks Jarvis in a low tone, because she’s almost sure that she was and the A.I. is supposed to remind her when she forgets, so there is no way she could have missed some.

‘You were. But the proved effectiveness is 98,3%.’

‘Of-fucking-course,’ Toni laughs humorlessly.

‘May I suggest a blood test? That way you would be certain about the situation.’

‘What would I do without you, J,’ she sighs and drags herself down to the R&D floor that hold the medical unit and hides herself in one of the small labs. ‘Ask Marian to come over. Now.’

A few moments later the doctor comes in and frowns at the sight of Toni seated on the armchair, with her sleeve rolled up and a paper from the gauze she used to clean her arm with antiseptic between teeth. Toni spats it out, watching for a second as it flies down to the floor, before looking back at the woman.

‘I need a blood sample,’ she states and the doctor huffs, but takes the syringe that lays on the desk and tears the packaging apart.

‘I’m glad you didn’t try to do it yourself, Miss Stark, see how you’re behaving like a grown-up,’ the woman comments when Toni stares at the needle blankly, hardly feeling it piercing her skin. There are no more questions because seriously, it’s not a surprise to anyone who worked Toni for more than three days to be asked something unexpected and strange.

‘Thanks,’ she says as the woman leaves as soon as she’s done with sticking the terrible medical tape to Toni’s skin; then the doors close. Toni puts the blood into one of the machines and sits back on the armchair, feeling lightheaded. ‘You know what to do, J.’

‘Of course,’ the A.I. replies solemnly.

It takes him full seventeen minutes to finish, which is improperly long in Toni’s opinion.

‘The test came out positive, ma’am,’ Jarvis’ voice says in the end and Toni freezes, even though she could be sure the answer would be exactly those words. ‘Do you want me to schedule an appointment with a doctor?’

‘Probably, yeah, soon, just not – not right now, J. Tomorrow. Tomorrow sounds good, I need to think…’ she keeps talking as she takes the printout of the results and puts it, folded, into her pocket. ‘Dispose of the blood, sterilize all the equipment. Standard procedures,’ she adds, walking out of the room.

‘Engaging,’ Jarvis informs her from the nearest speaker.

Toni almost runs through the corridors, glad that there is no one around, and goes straight to the penthouse level. When she walks out of the elevator, she stops right there and slumps down the wall, hugging her knees to the chest.

She’s never planned a child, she was never going to have a child and that much was obvious from her teenage years, it was too responsible and too time-consuming and _everything_ , and she has no idea how to take care of any living thing but herself, and even that not so much, she was never even able to stay in a relationship for longer than a few months and this is a thing for years. Decades.

_Fuck._

‘Are you okay?’ Jarvis asks and she can’t help but give him a small smile at the nearest camera.

‘Gonna be okay, J,’ she replies, not sure if she’d telling this to the A.I. or to herself. ‘It’s – I’m gonna be okay.’

Only that Toni is not so sure: she is many things, but not stupid, and she realizes all too well, all at once, what this really means. All the years she spent drinking, all the drugs and the cigarettes she used to have around, the arc reactor and the palladium poisoning – she shouldn’t even be physically able to bear a child, right? She’s been taking the pill since she was fifteen, so it’s been twenty years, and she used to have sex every fucking day, and it’s now, now when she is thirty five Iron Woman – that’s just _crazy_.

‘J, what I am going to do now?’ she whispers, and it’s not right because she doesn’t whisper, she doesn’t do quiet and subdued and unsure.

‘I’m afraid I have no answer for this query, ma’am,’ Jarvis replies after a moment of hesitation. ‘I believe the only thing I can advise you is try to eat something, stay hydrated and get some rest.’

‘Of course, J, like we know it’s gonna happen,’ she shots back, but stays in place on the cold marble floor, what probably isn’t the best idea, but she can’t make herself move.

When she finally does get up, her legs are asleep and she trips three times before she gets to the kitchen. She drinks a glass of milk again, what soothes her stomach, and nibbles on a granola bar that feels like the only edible thing in the whole room. Then she goes to the workshop, ask Jarvis to play some loud and angry music and plays with Mark IX for six hour straight, when she almost passes out of the couch, feeling achy and exhausted.

***

The morning begins with the too-familiar routine and Toni can’t help but wonder how could she be so blind _not to notice_.

‘Find me a midwife, J. Full discretion. Have Happy drive her here – make it a woman, obviously, please – as soon as possible. We have all the equipment she might need?’

‘Indeed we have. I took some liberties and looked it up yesterday, according to our usual guidelines, there are two persons you might want to consider.’

Sheryl Wilkers, a professional midwife, comes by the next afternoon. Toni spends all the time in between working, trying to swallow something other than cold milk or BLT’s which turns out to be impossible, unless she counts mint candy. They talk, and Toni answers questions until her throat is sore from all that, and she _hates_ sharing all the details of her life with a half-stranger. Or with anyone. Sheryl is very sweet though; she orders a set of blood tests that Jarvis runs immediately, and lots of other examinations take place in the meantime, more or less pleasant. It lasts for two hours before Toni is satisfied with all the information.

‘We could do an ultrasound, if you have the equipment, Miss Stark,’ the woman says finally, and Toni nods, leading her to the other room which, of course, could rival the best professional clinics.

Then Toni is not sure how and what happens, it’s a combination of a strange tingling sensation and the woman’s soothing words, until she hears this:

‘We were mistaken, Miss Stark, about the conception date. It seems.’

Toni tries to remember when she had sex exactly, but it was at least one time each week, so it could have been anytime. And everything fitted when they talked –

‘It appears that you are about seven weeks in.’

– but apparently not, since the first assumption wasn’t right. Fuck, she’s been having irregular cycles since Afghanistan and the poisoning, but this is _off_. Seven weeks, seven weeks is almost two months, well, not quite, a month and two thirds or something. That’s – a lot.

‘How could I miss the signs?’ she asks aloud, although she didn’t really mean to.

‘Some women do not learn about the pregnancy until the second trimester ,’ Sheryl supplies. ‘Do you want to print the photo? You can’t see so much, but –’

‘No, no printing,’ Toni cuts in. She is not really sure how she’s speaking, keeping herself together still. ‘Not now.’

Then there is the Talk part 2.0, apparently prompted by the seven magic weeks – since when is it the happy number – and it’s all just health concerns. Yes, Toni is thirty five and never been pregnant, her body is fucked up and everything, thanks for stating the obvious, but she it’s been more or less 24 hours since she’s learned about it all and she still kind of thinks that tomorrow she’s going to wake up and it was just a weird dream.

That is, right up until Sheryl asks:

‘The question is, are you going to keep the baby?’

That kind of makes her feel too down-to-earth, because she has no idea.

‘When do I have to –’

‘The earlier the better, if you want an abortion. Just let me know, okay? Talk with the father, talk with family, friends, whoever you need, take your time. Sleep with it.’

‘Sure,’ she agrees and they say goodbye, but Toni doesn’t walk the woman to the elevator since she’s not sure she could keep steady if she stood up, her brain feels like cotton candy and she feels dizzy and shaky with _everything_.

She can’t sleep, so instead she spends the night listening to blasting music again, throwing up and crying what she hates, because she hasn’t cried since she was a teenager. Not really, not even at the funeral. It must be the hormones, she decides, even though it’s lying to yourself, just a bit. She wishes she could just get beautifully drunk.

***

Around two a.m. she calls Rhodey, because he’s in the Middle East and it’s morning there. And she can’t fall asleep, no matter how tired she feels, lying on her back on the thick woolen rug and staring at the ceiling and city lights reflected in all the shiny polished surfaces, what is not a very good idea since the kaleidoscope effect is confusingly iridescent.

‘Rhodey, honeybear, that’s soo nice you picked up,’ she purrs into the phone when he speaks up. She can hear him sighing over the tiniest cracking on the line.

‘I’m not getting you out if jail, Toni, and I’m not interested if you got laid or made a world-changing discovery. I shouldn’t even be talking with you, really.’

‘That’s ‘o nice of you,’ she murmurs, but she’s quite sure there is something wrong with her voice when Rhodey asks:

‘What happened?’

It must be fucking tears thick in her throat, or the raw pain from all the talking and crying and silent shouting she’s done like a perfect fuck-up, in the dark room, with A.I. watching over as a babysitter.

‘Did someone hurt you?’ Rhodey, sweet Rhodey asks and she snorts, but it comes out rather like a pathetic whimper. ‘Toni?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she says quickly, almost stumbling over the words, but apparently they are clear enough since Rhodey gasps, grunts and takes a few deeper breathes.

‘Did you say what you just said? Because I was expecting everything else, really, everything.’

‘Rhodey,’ she just says tiredly, and the tone of her voice is more than any words she could say.

‘Are you sure – what will you do now? You seeing someone? Why is this all so sudden?’

‘Not seeing, baby,’ Toni replies instantly. ‘It’s – it’s crazy, I learned yesterday and the midwife says I’m seven weeks in and I haven’t fucking noticed anything, and now I just, I don’t know. I – Rhodey, what am I going to do?’

Now it’s panic definitely raising in her voice. That is bad.

But Rhodey’s voice is calming as he starts talking after a moment of silence filled with wind howling coming from the man’s side; Toni drinks his words easily and takes nice even steady breaths between and it’s almost like she knows what she is doing. He says he can’t help her with making the decision – of course she doesn’t have to articulate anything, they have known each other for ever twenty years – but she needs to take all factors into consideration, what is Rhodey-speak for ‘do what you think is right, but if you die in the meantime I will kill you, you moron.’ What is what he tells her a lot, and she gets it, she really does – but for the first time _ever_ it bothers her, just a bit, that he is a man. That seems like a different world, now.

Toni ends the call sooner than she’d like, not to make Rhodey lose his job over her lousy messy self. Then she tries to sleep, what she actually manages to do around four, only to be woken by Pepper calling her again and again.

‘You need to be in the meeting in three hours. It is ten now. Wear some proper clothes, bring the folder with projects and be on time, please. I can’t bear dealing with those old men cursing you again.’

‘Will be there, Pep,’ she assures the CEO and hangs up.

Toni gets there in time and even remembers the documents, what leaves Pepper startled, since it never happens and she has her copy of the folder anyway. When they are done, she takes Pep for late lunch to café when she gets them both giant pull apart cinnamon muffins, because cinnamons seems to have nausea-easing properties as well. Pepper tells her to stop being silly and to say what she wants/needs to say, so she does.

Pepper asks her if she has a death wish, what is very much not what Toni expected to hear.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Toni, but it’s – look at it practically, you’ve got shrapnel near your heart and how do you know something won’t happen, I don’t know, during the delivery? I just got you back from Afghanistan, from the crazy hole to the other world, and then you get to fight all the aliens and villains and estranged machines of the earth. I – I don’t want anything to happen to you. Think about it.’

Toni nods stiffly and waits for Pep to say something like, but I will be with you whatever you decide to do. Pepper never does, and Toni is… disappointed, for the lack of better word. What basically means no one expects her to keep the baby, what makes her feel like saying fuck you to the whole world.

She says a quick goodbye and runs away to hide in the workshop.

‘Why am I thinking about it, when I could never be a good mother? Well, me as a mother could never work, and it even sounds weird when I say it,’ she mutters to herself as Jarvis plays some music, only in the background though. ‘I’d just fuck it up. I have no idea of how to be a parent.’

‘I must disagree, ma’am,’ Jarvis cuts in and Toni’s head goes up so sharply that an acute pain flows through her neck. ‘You’ve been nothing else than a parent for me and all the other bots, all of us being  your creations, and there hasn’t been a single moment when any of us felt neglected. You’ve always catered for all of our needs, even the silliest ones.’

Butterfingers chirps energetically from the corner, raising his camera a bit shyly. Toni blows him a kiss and smiles quickly, what feels strange on her half-numb face.

‘You shouldn’t think so bad of yourself,’ Jarvis adds softly. Toni can swear there are tears making her eyes wet and shiny, but she blinks them away. She’s not sure if the aversion to her not keeping the child means the same as wanting to keep it.

***

It takes her three days to decide it does, apparently, and Toni finds herself completely at loss of words about her own decision. But it’s obvious and definite because suddenly, she knows she wants the baby. She’s not sure she knows what and how to do, she’s not sure she knows what she’s signing up for, but – she’s keeping it.

Sheryl wants to do more tests, to determine the health threats to her and the baby, to which Toni agrees wholeheartedly. Rhodey says she’s crazy, but he laughs warmly and she wishes she could hug him, but he’ll be in Middle East for three more months, coming back when she’ll be big and with backache, what is a completely terrifying vision. Pepper is very business-like, giving her uncertain smiles and talking about a person who’d substitute her in supervising R&D for the time needed, legal issues, risk factors and all.

Toni listens and returns the smiles, but truth to be told she is scared out of her mind.

It’s fascinating and frightening to see how her body is changing, now that she knows what to look for; it’s slow but impossible to miss at this point. Besides all the ‘side effects’, Toni notices she must have put on two or three pounds, seemingly all in her breasts, so she makes a mental not to get some new bras soon; trousers feel just a bit tighter around the belly, too.

It’s freaking Toni out, but she listens to Jarvis professional information and tries to distract herself from everything by work. She makes some arrows for Barton and comes up with a completely new fabric for the armor undersuit, one that would make her much less prone to getting physically hurt since she is not going to stop being superhero for as long as possible. Which probably means for as long as she’ll fit into Mark IX.

The public is going to be crazy, she realizes.

‘You don’t have to inform anyone of the pregnancy for as long as you want, ma’am,’ Jarvis remind her when she verbalizes her worries. ‘With your thin and athletic figure people are not likely to notice until you’ll be around twenty weeks, if you won't want them to.’

‘Not sure if it’s good or bad news,’ Toni comments drily. ‘But I’m not going public until then.’

‘That’s probably a wise decision. For once,’ Jarvis replies making her snort. Jarvis is the best.

***

Everything goes on, slowly, even though Toni still feels a bit out of the world, but it begins to sink in, that she is going to have a child. A real human being. It’s – incredible. And gets even more scary, but exciting at the same time.

Sheryl conducts some more test, proclaiming Toni and the baby healthy for now, but in need to be under observation, so they schedule a meeting every two weeks. It’s risky, the pregnancy, Toni is fully aware, so she finds herself doing a lot of responsible things, starting with eating regular small healthy meals because she is forbidden to lose weight, and with all the puking that wouldn’t be too difficult. She eats all the grains with fiber and vegetables and proteins that are doing good to her body and provide for the baby’s needs. No alcohol and nothing raw, what rules out two of her favorite things ever: scotch and sushi.

She is still exhausted, but getting used to the feeling, and then the Avengers are called to contain the next mad scientist’s creations, she suits up and does her job quickly and efficiently. The debrief is a pain like always, and she runs from the Helicarrier as soon as she can, and if she jumps out of the aircraft when it’s still in the air, no one should be as surprised and outraged as they are. She has hacked the S.H.I.E.L.D. security, of course, it was surprisingly easy, and likes to listen what they say when she’s not there sometimes.

It’s never really good things, but she’s been called a slut enough times since she was a teenager, not to mention all the other stories, so she’s learned to ignore all the hate-talk. Though it’s not so much of a hate talk, she muses, when her teammates discuss her, it’s usually making snarky comments or complaining about her insubordination and yet another stunt she’s pulled to ‘show off,’ what about 60% of times is wrong. Really, she usually has a reason when she does something stupid.

Toni keeps working in the shop most of the days, remembering to try to sleep properly, what isn’t so easy and obvious since she has never been a regular sleeper, but she _tries._ She sticks to her normal workout, having learned from Sheryl that for a few more weeks she doesn’t need to make any changes in her routine.

***

Then, breaking the unspoken rule, some ugly and numerous aliens come to greet the earth with their cosmic guns, like a bad and less effective parody of the Chitauri - come for the tea break to New York, why is it always New York, and the Avengers suit up only a week after the previous time. Thor is back in Asgard for some time, so there is only five of them, and while they are easier to knock out than Chitauri and didn’t bring along some gigantic scaly animals, they are still a pain in the ass.

Toni is totally pissed, since her mood has been just a tad swinging last few days, and she spent more time in the bathroom than she’d care to admit _and_ she has an important project that she’s supposed to present to the board in three days and it still needs some detailed work that normally she’d do in a day, but with all this craziness? No idea.

Plus, she was called in by an annoyed Rogers, who woke her up at four a.m., not too long after she managed to fall asleep, so she’s tired and kinda lightheaded. All the worst things at once.

So when they go to the debrief, she sits in her usual chair, crossing her legs because it makes her stomach and abdomen feel less achy, and decides to tell them what is the case since she’s full ten weeks in, and as much as she’d like to keep it to herself for the time being, it feels right. Toni is not sure why she even has this kind of feelings towards S.H.I.E.L.D. - which only messes with her and demands tech all the time - or her teammates who tend to look at her questioningly, as if waiting for her to do something wrong which hey, admittedly she does, but then it may happen everyone.

She makes a boring quick report, being factual and brief, because she actually has a job to do and can’t just sit around and do secret stuff like everyone else.

It’s the Avengers, Fury and Hill in the room; Toni scowls at the thought that _Maria_ is going to throw her judgmental looks from the very beginning, because everyone knows how strict the woman is, and how fanatic about work, for the lack of a better word.

But Toni is not going to be intimidated by those few people. She’s been living in the spotlight for decades, and she can deal with them.

‘I have something to add,’ she states when the debrief is almost over, and everyone looks at her with bored faces. Toni has to admit that they might have the right to do that, because she loves throwing in snarky and inappropriate comments, sometimes. ‘I’m pregnant. Ten weeks. Thought you’d like to know.’

If she thought it would be awkward, she was wrong, it’s more of hilarious: their faces are ridiculous, displaying varying stages of disbelief and shock.

There are few long, thick moment of silence when everyone expect Toni to say she is joking, but she doesn’t. She meets their gazes with her eyebrows raised challengingly, and a small crooked smirk.

Then it’s a bit awkward, when the silence stretches, and _of course_ it’s dear Maria to break it.

‘Who is the father?’

‘Why does it interest you?’ Toni asks back, since she’s not going to tell them about Ryan, and she doesn’t plan to make up silly lies because she doesn’t have to.

‘You are a public person, and recognized as an Avenger,’ Hill shots back. So that’s about public image, hmm?

‘I’m not telling you who is the father,’ Toni replies with her best shit-eating grin.

‘I thought you were done slutting around, Stark,’ Hill snarls, but Toni keeps the smile on her face. Call it what you want, she is not going celibate because someone has problems with her having sex, hell, why do they even care.

‘You’re not going to live with the father?’ Rogers speaks up, outrage clear in his voice, mixed with a tad of disbelief. And a tiny possible bit of disguise, but Toni is not that meticulous.

‘No, why, is it a problem to you? Ever heard of single mothers?’

‘No child should be deprived the right to grow up with both parents, unless they _die_ ,’ Rogers proclaims, and hell, it’s creepy when he gets all Captain America on her.

‘Well, welcome to the real world,’ Toni mutters, sure that he will hear.

‘Do _you_ even know who the father is?’ Hill asks, and Toni feels like she’s nearing the ends of her patience, but she still keeps the grin on her face.

‘Are you curious, _Maria_?’ Toni asks in her sweetest voice, and Natasha raises from her seat with a Very Angry Face. Toni is still in the suit, so that’s not a good idea.

‘You’re being irresponsible,’ she says instead of punching Toni. ‘You will be a danger to everyone, to yourself and to it and to the Avengers. A good agent would never let that happen’

‘Good thing that I’m not an agent, then –’

‘You’re staying on the team, Stark, as long as Thor in Asgard at least. You’re not going to be released from you duties because you were irresponsible enough to get knocked up. If you’re not there on the next call, I’ll have your head.’

‘Sure thing, captain,’ Toni replies, doing a mock salute, like in all those bad pirate movies. Since that was a backwards speech saying that they need her, she’s not all that mad. Because they really do need Iron Woman, and Toni Starks comes as a free of charge addition.

‘You do realize that this may be dangerous to your health, and dangerous to the team, too,’ Bruce quips in and there is disappointment in his voice, what is much more difficult to dismiss than Captain America who seems to be disappointed with Toni like, 95% of the time. And the five is only when she saves some moron’s ass on the field.

‘Everything is fine. I just wanted to inform you, guessing you’d throw a bigger tantrum if I told you even later, so consider yourself lucky,’ Toni states and gets up to walk. No one but her moves, all eyes staring at her body, probably looking for any signs of change, which she knows are really almost invisible. Yet.

‘I can’t believe she wants to keep it,’ Toni hears Barton say before she gets out of the room, so she turns around with a obscenely polite face.

‘Oh, and why is that?’

‘Besides your obvious daddy issues, and everything that you’ve done with your body for the last twenty years?  How do you know it’s not going to have FAS?’

That makes Toni’s skin crawl, but she doesn’t dignify that with an answer, getting out of the room and making the door shut with a loudest possible noise.

Jarvis is transmitting the conversation into her ear, so she hears Banner saying that it was a bit low and Rogers asking what is FAS, and Romanov and Hill commenting how obviously irresponsible she is, more than ever, and how they’d never let _this_ happen.

Toni orders Jarvis to cut off the connection and play some music. She goes to the back of the ship and jumps out, letting herself fall free for a few long moments before firing the repulsors and flying away from Helicarrier.

***

Back in Stark Tower, Toni makes herself the biggest cup of hot white chocolate ever, with whipped cream, salted caramel sauce and crushed M&M’s on the top because it kind of feels like a good idea, and keeps methodically putting all the calories into her mouth despite the nausea lingering in her stomach, but she’s aware that she won’t be able to eat anything else. In the meantime, she asks Jarvis to lock down the three future projects she has started to tinker with, some stuff for S.H.I.E.L.D., because she’s pissed off.

And possibly a bit hurt, but Starks do not get hurt.

‘Jarvis, do you think I’m making a mistake?’ she asks around a spoonful of the chocolate indulgence, eyes fixed on the TV screen that was playing some neutral comedy-drama movie that the A.I. knows she enjoys, even though she’s not really sure what she’s staring at.

‘On the contrary, ma’am. I think you’re making the best of possible choices.’

Toni smiles over her steaming cup, inhaling the soft pleasant scent.

‘I am very angry at your teammates now,’ Jarvis adds.

‘I guess I am too, a bit,’ Toni agrees, shifting on the sofa but never taking her eyes off the screen. ‘But I can kinda understand what they wanted to say, even if hearing it is, ugh. I am glad I have you, Jarvis.’

‘I’m always here for you, ma’am,’ the A.I. assures her and falls silent, leaving Toni to the movie only. She falls asleep soon anyway, tired with the lack of sleep the previous night and the fight and feeling emotional, with a sweet taste in her mouth.

***

In the morning she is woken up by a phone call.

‘I sweat I’m going to murder someone if it’s another mission,’ she grumbles and stretches her sore limbs. But it’s Rhodey.

‘Jarvis called me and said you told the rest of your rag-tag team about the baby.’

‘About _it_ , honey,’ Toni corrects, and wow, she was not aware that she could put that much sarcasm and bitterness into one word. It’s a completely new level.

‘ _It_ ,’ Rhodey growls. ‘I’m going to murder them when I come back, Toni, I will lose by job and spend the rest of my life getting fucked in jail, and it’s going to be your fault, all your fault.’

‘No, really, they were just surprised. Who would imagine me being pregnant, keeping the kid, Rhodey, be honest? Fucking no one. And don’t worry, I can win my own fights.’

‘I sincerely hope they will come around soon,’ Rhodey says. He doesn’t have to say that he’s worried or that Toni sounds sleepy and tired and maybe sad, because if Jarvis was the one making the call, then it’s obvious that something is wrong.  ‘I have to leave in ten, so I’ll be going now, Toni. It’s going to take a few days off base, but I will call when I can.’

‘Sure, platypus.’

‘Be awesome in the meantime,’ Rhodey adds, making Toni smirk, and hangs up.

‘I think that the colonel’s advice is a very good one,’ Jarvis quips in as Toni cleans herself up. Long warm showers seem the be the best cure for the morning headaches, she’s discovered. ‘I believe it’s time to _be awesome_.’

‘My A.I. gives me life advice,’ Toni says to herself, almost giggling at how surreal it sounds. ‘I’m gonna rock today,’ she assures Jarvis and spends the whole day in the shop, finishing the material for presentation, fixing all the Mark IX systems and drawing up a few ideas that have been lurking around in her head, suddenly having free time because of the discarded S.H.I.E.L.D. projects.

In the evening, she dresses up and goes to one of the parties in those fancy clubs that she actually enjoys, and while she doesn’t get drunk, she can pretend she does perfectly. She dances and dances and makes a bit of a fool of herself, but comes home alone, smiling and heated. It’s only two, so she gets enough sleep before Pepper wakes her up, calling to remind her about the presentation.

It’s a week before Rhodey calls, in the meantime Toni deals with all the not very nice pregnancy side effects, shows her projects and shuts the old men mouths with its sheer brilliance, and gets Jarvis to stop all the calls from S.H.I.E.L.D. besides Steve’s assemble one.

He is sweet like always, being the only supporting person besides Jarvis and the other bots and yes, she’s counting them as people. Pepper keeps asking her if she’s feeling all right, and when she assures everything is okay she’s left alone.

***

Then the next week, Toni gets a call from Steve just a moment after Sheryl leaves. She cleans her belly from the remains of the ultrasound gel quickly, jumps into the undersuit and the armor and flies to Washington D.C., since it’s humans this time who have another dumb taking over the world idea. It’s really becoming routine these days. Toni swears the frequency of attacks is positively crazy recently.

Plus, Toni is annoyed _again_ , since she was rather happy staring at the first printout of the ultrasound, with the baby of whole two inches length. She did swear she was not going to go sappy, but she’s kind of reconsidering pinning it somewhere in the workshop. No one would see it.

It finishes sooner than expected, and they are up on the Helicarrier again. Toni is not sure she even wants to look at the Avengers bored and tired faces, but well, what can she do. The debrief is quick, and she says as little words as possible to show that she’s still mad at them. She probably will be for a long time, mind you, because she has a fucking reason. 

After they finish, Romanov tells her that she is childish. Toni makes a pouty face and doesn’t even grace the agent with a longer look. She would have thought that there would be more solidarity between women, but apparently that’s not the code in S.H.I.E.L.D., where everyone seems to be able to do anything to please their superiors, including getting rid of  a child, for whatever reasons. _Especially_ the top two women.

When Toni walks back to exit she can use to fly away in the armor, she meets the glorious Captain, still in full gear, leaning against the wall in one of the corridors. He looks fuming.

‘Do you really hate me so much, Rogers? Be honest. It’s a scientific research.’

‘I don’t think I hate you,’ Rogers replies, wrinkling his nose in the funny way he does when he’s confused. ‘I don’t understand the choices you are making, and I don’t think I can respect someone who deliberately makes the kind of choice you made. And yes, I hate it when you’re insubordinate during missions.’

Huh. Apparently Captain America is virtuous enough not to tell even _Toni Stark_ that she’s a failure. There might be some hope yet –

‘If you keep doing this, I will have to kick you off the team no matter what Fury says. And you’re going to give an armor to an authorized person, who will resume your place in the initiative.’

– or not.

Toni just snarls at him angrily, because that is too much, that is too fucking much, and it doesn’t help at all that it was almost for sure a group-made decision, with a big input from the directors who hate her guts and love her money. It’s just _too much_.

She bursts out of the door and flies at the top speed, which makes her kind of dizzy in the suit and as soon as Jarvis picks it up, which if after full two seconds, he takes the control of Mark IX and slows down, finally releasing her to safety on the top of the tower.

‘Thanks, Jarvis,’ Toni says easily when the suit doesn’t land on the special pad since she doesn’t want to be out yet; she goes to the training room instead and blasts a dozen evil dummy bots that suddenly and conspicuously all have pirate-like eye patches.

‘I wish I could marry you, J,’ Toni states when the last dummy is down. She gets out of the suit and all naked walks from the workshop to the penthouse’s bathroom, taking her private elevator. Before steeping into the shower to get all the sweat of herself – that’s the only disadvantage of the new undersuit, it makes her feel really hot, or maybe it’s just hormones, she can’t really tell at the moment – she spends almost ten minutes staring at herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, trying to determine if her body has really changed, if anyone would notice before she wanted them to.

She’s full four pounds heavier than the last time she weighted herself, and that must have been a few months earlier, since she was long over obsessing about weight. And being a superhero only helps with staying fit. Sure, her breasts are probably a size up, but since they were never big, the difference is not so obvious, not until she undresses herself. Which she doesn’t plan to do much in public in the near future, mind you. She might be half an inch wider in hips and waist, too, but that’s it. Nothing _obvious._

Despite the rumors, she’s never been pregnant, and believing the gossip magazines back in 90s is not a good idea, since they would write about her questionable state every time she put on some pounds, which did happen a few times in her life, it’s impossible to be a skinny little bitch 365/365 for _years_. It was the best motivation to lose them quickly though. She was good at that, back then, as drugs and food don’t always mix well.

And since shower is the best time for deep thoughts and reminiscing your life, she comes to the conclusion that god, she was so stupid when she was younger. She probably still is. For a moment, she can almost understand Rogers, but that’s only a flicker.

Growing up is such a _pain_.

***

Pepper comes over the next day. which is Sunday, bringing a thick folder full of paperwork, and some homemade spaghetti with meatballs, which surprisingly smells appealing to Toni.  They don’t talk about the pregnancy, just business and gossip and Pepper’s new boyfriend who is supposed to be _the one_ again. Toni persuades Pepper to take rest of the afternoon off – come on, it is Sunday – and they sit for a few hours on the sofa, eating ice cream with spoons and watching some bad popular movies, what is the perfect mindless activity.

On Monday morning Toni wakes up in her own bed, with no headache and no other aches, and – that’s a win of the month – no nausea feeling making its way up to her throat.

She eats a breakfast that is not a You-made smoothie for the first time in about a month, and it feels good, even though she has to quickly find some job for the bot that seems to be sad at the chore taken away from him.

Toni fills two patent forms during the day, making last calculations for the projects before sending them to SI Medical and SI Energy Engineering branches to create mass production prototypes. In the evening she goes out to one of the private clubs again, drinks coke with lime all evening and flirts with everyone who comes by.

When Toni comes back home, it takes he some time to fall asleep, so she just stares at New York through the huge windows. She kind of wishes she had someone other than the midwife to really talk about the pregnancy with – no, Rhodey who is half the world away in a power-short area doesn’t really count – but that’s life. Toni talks with Jarvis instead, and with all other bots who seem to be learning what a human child means; she murmurs to herself a lot, too, while working…

Things are good, and Toni doesn’t even bother to think about her so called team.

***

The next few days are busy with work. Toni flies to California with Pepper for two night to open the newest research center for SI medical. It requires wearing high heels for a longer time than Toni is comfortable with, since her legs have been feeling heavy and she’s still getting a bit lightheaded from time to time, but everything goes fine. She mingles with deadly efficiency at the party, batting her long eyelashes at all the potential contributors, making lots of them promise to look closer, give money for research and sign contracts. Pepper will be proud.

The event is near San Francisco and Pepper absolutely bans Toni from flying in the suitcase armor to sleep in Malibu, breaking all the air traffic laws _again_. Toni pouts just a bit, since she is allowed to break the laws as long as that’s what Avengers assembling requires – that’s the magical note S.H.I.E.L.D. gave her, though she could have bargained for one herself – and she could always claim there was a situation.

But Toni doesn’t want to get on Pepper’s bad side since she’s been promised more homemade food and being excused from a few boring meetings in the near future is she behaves. So she does. There are no embarrassing photos on the Internet the next day.

Yes, she’s taken care not to let anyone notice her body changing.

When she’s back in New York, she gets Happy to break at least a dozen traffic laws and drive her as quickly as possible from La Guardia to Stark Tower, with a detour to Momofuku Milk Bar as Toni is suddenly sure that she can’t live through another hour without cereal milk ice cream. She hasn’t had all the typical cravings, no pickles, chocolate, curry or whatever, but right now she _definitely_ can’t live without the cereal milk.

It’s funny. Happy thinks so, too, because he makes his weird face and drives more crazily than usually.

Back in the tower, with a spoon of ice cream permanently installed into her mouth for the evening, Toni decides to work on an hydraulics upgrade for War Machine, to have a surprise for Rhodey when he comes back. She hums along with Metallica and unintentionally stays up all night. But it’s because of the time change, Toni explains to Jarvis, what has never been a big deal to her, yes, apparently it is now, but she really isn’t sleepy in the morning, after a busy night.

The upgrade is ready by then, just needs to be manufactured and installed in a moment of the colonel’s distraction, because Toni decides she’s above something as easy and petty as kidnapping the armor that she made herself, even if Rhodey has it locked away in a secure location. Come on, she’s a _Stark_.

The rest of the day is a whiz of meeting and consulting, because no matter what S.H.I.E.L.D. and a big part of the public opinion might think, Toni has a job. It means sitting in her room during the official consulting hours, even if she spends most of that time drawing blueprints on her tablet while she tries to sit comfortably in the big swivel armchair. She wishes she could rest her legs on the table, but since Pepper makes her wear skirts – ‘it’s only twice a month, Toni’ – that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Sometimes Toni wonders how many harassment charges she’d get if she was a man, as she still gets a few a year. And really, they are all totally fabricated and fake, but it’s all over the  cheap news anyway.

***

On Friday, Fury calls her and orders her to come over to the Mansion. Toni is _very_ tempted to refuse, but she doesn’t really have plans for the rest of the day besides the usual: hole up in the shop, try to teach the bots how to play virtual basketball with Jarvis, harass the cute scientists down in R &D, go out somewhere, pretend not to take over the world. Et caetera.

Well, she is kind of taking over the world, it’s just in the much less conspicuous way than the villains and aliens. Stark tech is the best ever and it’s kind of crawling around the whole world and it’s everywhere. Really, _everywhere_.

So Toni puts on old tight jeans and killer heels, and decides on a misty half-transparent top, different from her usual style, but she’ll be very happy to see Rogers’ shocked face, and all others looking away in silent embarrassment like they always do when she forces her boobs on them.

Oh joy.

And her body is still perfect enough to show off, even under Romanov’s scrutinizing gaze  when Toni walks into the big dining room, cringing inwardly at all the memories that’d be very glad to flood her mind, but she doesn’t let them.

‘Soo, what is it about this time?’ she asks Fury, who is standing at the end of the table, with Avengers seated – minus Banner, she notes – and looking kind of imposing in his blacks. Not that Toni would ever say that aloud.

‘You were supposed to prepare tech specs for Helicarrier power grid. Like, a few days ago. And then you were not taking phones. Or Potts, she wasn’t either.’

Toni is kind of mad at Fury calling Pepper by her surname like that, because she fucking deserves a basic polite honorific, but she keeps silent this time.

Then she blinks because she’s not sure what Fury is talking about – _ah_. So one of those discarded projects must have been an actual commissioned one, and not just her tinkering and playing –

 _Jarvis, you vindictive beast_.

Toni can’t help but burst into laughter at how amazing the A.I. is, please, it’s marvelous. No, of course the rest of the team doesn’t think so, so they stare at Toni’s amusement with resignation and poorly hidden disguise, but she doesn’t even try to explain that they are wrong in their assumptions.

Well, it all comes down to the fact that Toni and her tech and money are essential for S.H.I.E.L.D, but they will never admit it and will keep trying to bully her into thinking she owes them something.

And she does not.

‘Unable to do anything without me again, Fury?’ she teases, grinning widely and pacing around the room, what is funny as their heads keep following her. Besides Rogers. He is staring at somewhere between the edge of the polished oak table and his lap.

‘Just get it done. By the end of the week.’

‘Or what?’ Toni asks before she can stop herself.

‘I’ll put you in the Hulk-container on the Helicarrier for a week, without your fancy gadgets. All time in the air.’

Oh, Toni _hates_ being on the Helicarrier for prolonged time, since it’s like transferring from a Harley to wooden pony. 

‘I feel threatened here, Fury, seriously, would you do something that inhuman to a pregnant woman?’ she asks in a breaking voice, and the whole team seems to suck in breaths at exactly the same time, making Toni fake a high society giggle. ‘You can have the specs tomorrow, anyway. Just please, don’t let any of your morons fuck it up. My time is too precious for that.’

Fury growls in response, and Toni awards herself a beautiful round hundred points.

‘But why the whole team? I mean, you could probably try to threaten my all by yourself, pirate boy,’ Toni says as she walks up to a china closet, takes a crystal glass and pours herself water from a jar that stands on the table by the window. It’s starting to be annoying, the way they are staring, but Toni doesn’t plan to show it; instead she plays with the glass in her fingers and flicks her hair.

‘They live here,’ Fury replies.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Toni shots back, giving him a _no kidding_ look. ‘So what, are they trying to make an assessment of my mental state, like your makeshift psychologist tried to do?’ Toni adds, giving Natasha a pointed look. Textbook narcissism, wow, anyone could say that without pissing Toni off for weeks and then pissing her even more coming out as a secret agent.

‘If anything, we’d asset your _usefulness_ , Stark. But you seem in top form,’ Barton replies. Of course, Toni would expect nothing less than efficiency from the assassins.

‘Well, now that we’ve established that, may I please be excused?’ she laces her voice with the perfect nauseating sweetness; at least years of practice pay off.

‘You won’t be useful for long, Stark. We need to discuss what we will do later. You can’t just drop out. I thought you claimed to be committed, when you insisted to be on the team a few months ago.’

‘No, you are not getting the armor. No, it’s not negotiable. No, I’m not putting someone you pick inside,’ Toni recites, putting the glass away and counting on her fingers. ‘No, I don’t care what you have to say. And fifth – no, I’m not leaving you to protect your sorry asses by yourself, because you would obviously fail. When it’s time, I will make sure someone is there to look out for you when you try to get yourself killed. We are not talking about it now, because I don’t want to talk about it now and surprise, it’s my time and my position and even my house you’re sitting in, so I’m making up rules this time,’ Toni states and walks up to the door, Avengers still seated down and staring. Argh.

‘Have a nice day,’ Toni adds and walks out, letting the door close behind her with a thud. Before she gets near the front door, though, she gets a sudden idea and decides to give it a try.

There is exactly one thing that Toni remembers from when she was a kid, and she intends to find it. So she goes up to the attic, staring blankly at all the changes that were made to the house – sure, she's known that the team stays in the mansion in but it would be a common courtesy to inform her what they were doing, but then she’d probably dismiss it anyway between all the more important things – and avoiding meeting anyone. 

Everything is covered with a tiny layer of dust, but put neatly in labeled boxes, so she doesn’t need much time to find what she’s looking for.

Yes, she’s becoming dangerously sentimental, but she digs out the soft blue blanket from a box with ‘BABY’ written on it. There are some other items, Toni has no idea why all the stuff was left here, since Maria and Howard never wanted another child.

Toni puts back the box and throws the blanket into a polybag she finds lying around, sneezes a few times when a cloud of dust fills her nose, and walks out of the room. She doesn’t meet anyone on the way back, luckily. If it weren’t for the fact that Jarvis controls the house electronic systems, she’s sure the Avengers would stare at her through the cameras.

When she jumps into the Rolls, Happy only sighs resignedly at her dirty state and drives straight back home.

Toni washes the blanket by herself, in the Jacuzzi bath that surely wasn’t made for this purpose. She’s not sure why there is even a laundry detergent in the penthouse, since she’s never, never ever done her own washing here.

‘They wanted me to be a boy,’ she tells Jarvis at some point. God, that sounds pathetic, but she finds herself continuing. ‘Howard wanted me to be a boy so much. To have a proper heir to the business. All my baby clothes were blue or green or grey. Nothing girl-like. Not that I minded, but it was easy to say having a girl was a disappointment – Maria was okay with that.  Edwin told me when I was older, said I deserved to know, but by that time I was fully aware that I was nowhere near a nice polite girl she wanted me to be. There was no way to reconcile the two ideas.’

‘I am proud to be names after such a wise man,’ Jarvis states. Toni smirks, because she can tell it’s a sneaky A.I. when she hears one. Jarvis knows her well enough to avoid talking about her parents.

‘I don’t want to _want_ a girl or a boy,’ Toni says and frowns at her own words. ‘I mean, I don’t want to prefer one gender to be disappointed if it’s the other. Does that make sense?’

‘I understand what you want to say, ma’am.’

‘You’re the best, J,’ Toni assures the A.I. as she takes the blanket out of the third change of water; who knew it would be that dirty.

Toni wrings the blanket and hangs it on a golden hanger.

‘Do you think it will be a girl or a boy?’ Toni asks. She doesn’t like how her voice is light and unsure, _hell_ , she doesn’t like asking the question at all. But the A.I. won’t tell anyone.

‘There is approximately 51,22% chance that it will be a boy, according to available data for the U.S.A.’

‘Not conclusive at all,’ Toni comments as she gets out of the bathroom and goes to the shop. The bots are in charging stations, but as soon as she claps and the lights are on, they start chirping and roll to Toni, waiting to be given a task.

‘You, make me a smoothie. Veggies and fruits, something tasty. Consult with Jarvis. Dummy, clean the main workstation, I need to get back to work after I eat,’ the two robots move to their respective spaces and begin working. Butterfingers just stares at Toni like a beaten puppy, with his claw hung down. But Toni knows exactly how to make the bot happy. ‘Polish the armors,’ Toni orders and the robot rolls away happily. ‘If you make as much as a scratch, I will use your parts to make the next training bot for S.H.I.E.L.D.’

A moment later You comes back with a smoothie in a covered cup with a straw. Perfect.

‘Now clean the kitchen corner, and then go back to your station, I’ll need you up tomorrow… Jarvis?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Retrieve the schematics and bring them up on the main hologram display.’

Of course, Jarvis would never get rid of Toni’s designs, unless it’s a direct explicit order with and authorization code, which is a routine that was set up a long time ago. Just after very drunk Toni told the A.I. to get rid of some blueprints she needed for the presentation next day, which resulted in Pepper threatening to quit for the first time ever and hey, Toni didn’t know yet that the woman never fulfills this specific promise.

So the schematics are sent to S.H.I.E.L.D. still before midnight with a big pink flashy gif note saying ‘did i say tomorrow, oh sorry, it’s today.’ It’s kind of cheap, but Toni likes it anyway.

***

The weekend passes quickly. Toni goes to a boring gala with Pepper again, meets her _the one_ boyfriend who seems to be less of a pompous dick than the previous one so Toni even talks to him instead of making faces. That doesn’t mean she remembers his name. Then she goes to club again, loses some pocket money in a poor but hilarious bet, and ends up with a man in his apartment. The sex is _good_. She’s kind of surprised.

The next day they have a dinner in a fancy restaurant and it’s pleasant, since Toni hasn’t been feeling nauseous for a few days now. They find out they have absolutely nothing in common besides being filthy rich, so they exchange high society gossip and silently vow to never sleep together again.

Monday is fourteen weeks appointment with Sheryl, who proclaims that everything is going well, but orders Toni to put on some weight since it’s _the time_ , and Toni’s been still hanging around those plus four pounds. She isn’t very happy about the idea, but she nods obediently and promises to munch more nutrients.

‘At least a pound up a week for now,’ Sheryl reminds her. That’s going to make putting coming out away in time more difficult, but not impossible, not yet. It mostly means getting a few new dresses for any occasions when she might be forced to go out. Toni prefers t-shirts and old jeans in the workshop anyway, and no one is surprised when she walks around like that in the tower. But then, it’s not an indication for normal, since most of the employees who have worked there for some months would probably thing it’s perfectly ordinary for her to walk around in underwear.

Not that there is someone is the first world that hasn’t seen her in varying state of undress.

This time, Toni takes the ultrasound picture and pins it to one of the monitor in the workshop without much hesitation, right next to the first one. Then, of course, the silly curious bots _notice_ and they are not going to back off until she explains it to those little electronic brains. Jarvis doesn’t comment, because sometimes he knows better than to start talking or ask questions.

But Dummy is the oldest one and the most jealous, so when Toni is tinkering with one of her antique cars the bot suddenly nudges her side – she’s laying on her back under the car, mind you – and almost makes her bump her head against the chassis frame.

‘What, Dummy? Now, really?’ she asks irritated, but her voice is affectionate because she’s not going to make the bot feel guilty. Or something.

The nudge repeats, so Toni gets out from under the car, only to see the three bots teamed up, with Dummy keeping the newest photo in its claw and presenting it questioningly.

‘Oh boy,’ Toni sighs and wipes her hands and forehead. ‘Jarvis, how do I get out of this mess?’

‘I have no appropriate response for the query,’ the A.I. says, but Toni can tell when it’s half-amused evading giving an answer.

‘I chose this life, huh?’ Toni mutters to herself and wonders, with the bot staring at her almost totally still, which is their equivalent of holding their breaths. ‘Jarvis, get me a hologram of a WALL-E like robot, don’t make it very similar, or there beasts will make me watch the movie for the next two weeks. Add a smaller robot inside the big one. _Don’t_ comment or laugh at me, please, I can’t believe I’m doing this myself.’

Toni proceeds to try to explain to the limited A.I.’s – it’s nothing derogatory, they are just a world away from Jarvis, but that doesn’t mean Toni loves them any less – the concept of pregnancy. On a robot hologram. Telling them that inside the big robot, there is a production line that creates one special small robot, half-copy of the big one. And they listen intently, process the information into lines of code, and do their equivalent of nodding.

In the end You takes the photo carefully and pins it back to the monitor.

Toni isn’t sure is she should be: a) proud, b) amused, c) embarrassed, d) terrified. What has suddenly become of her life. 

She keeps on working for the rest of the day in a state of half-shock, or it at least feels like that, and the bots behave as if nothing has happened. Jarvis isn’t very helpful either; Toni is sure he’s be grinning all the time is he could. Hell, he can almost hear the smirk in the A.I. silence.

***

The next day Fury tries to call Toni, but she’s in a Very Important Meeting with Pepper and Jarvis doesn’t dignify the director with connecting him to the phone that Toni has with her.

Since it’s not Avengers assembling, and not even some new projects that needs to be done by someone who has a working brain, Toni can guess they want another meeting to discuss ‘her situation’ or ‘usefulness in the field’ or ‘taking over her responsibilities’ or whatever fancy expression Hill can come up in a debrief report.

Toni is kinda a step ahead, well, at least in her mind. When Fury calls in the evening and the next morning, she decides to make it a step ahead in real. So she calls Rhodey.

‘I will be back in a month, Toni. Can’t leave a man in peace for that long?’ the colonels says as he picks up.

‘You know me,’ Toni purrs. ‘Addictive personality… But I’m calling for a reason.’

‘That’s new.’

‘Don’t be mean, sugarheart. It’s business. I want to ask you for a favor.’

‘I hope it’s really not like that time in MIT –’

‘Serious, serious here,’ Toni announces, fully aware that her voice doesn’t sound 100% solemn, but what can she do. ‘I want to you take over Iron Woman duties for some time, when I’m not – fit. To fight. All that. Okay? Say you agree. You have to agree, or I’ll have the whole S.H.I.E.L.D. on my back.’

‘Toni –’

‘No, no, spare me, I’m being irresponsible, I should have known –’

‘Shut up –’ Rhodey tries again, but _hey._

‘Because they want me to give up the suit to whoever and I don’t trust anyone but you and Pepper with it, and please, imagine Pepper, she’d take over the world, she’d talk the villains into giving up and even doing the paperwork – maybe that’s not such a bad idea –’

‘Toni!’ Rhodey shouts and the level of noise makes her ear hurt for a moment. ‘You don’t know when to shut up. It’s now. So shut up. And I’ll do it.’

‘You’ll do it?’ Toni asks, because she thought he’s agree but that’s just too easy.

‘Yeah, I mean, you thought I’d leave all the possible glory of saving the world? When S.H.I.E.L.D. can write me a slip and I’ll be theirs for a few months, taking a break and relaxing _all the time_ instead of working my ass of in a burning desert? Because how often do you get called in, once, twice a month?’

‘Recently it’s been more often…’

‘I’m in, as soon as I’m back. Four weeks now.’

‘I plan to be on field at least until 20 weeks, so no luck, you come back to your diligent job and wait a month to get a free stay at Stark Tower, with jacuzzi and fresh figs from Israel twice a week.’

‘Throw in all the new movies on blue-ray, I need something to do while I’m lazing around, and War Machine is at your disposal. And tell Fury to suck it up.’

Toni does send Fury a message to his personal computer, again in cheap glittery animation saying ‘war machine at my cranky disposal, kisses.’

Then she goes to the kitchen and makes herself lunch which consists of painfully healthy fish baked with vegetables. She discovers that apparently, as much as she’s over throwing up, carrot is _not_ the good thing right now and spits it as soon as she makes a first chew. Then she digs out all the deadly orange pieces, throws them away and finished the dinner like a good girl she is.

The phone calls stop.

There is business in the afternoon again, which leaves her with a small headache, so she starts some designs for Mark X for comfort, taking a Sheryl-approved analgesic with a cup of cold milk because, no, that has not passed yet. It’s weird to think that the newest armor will be for – _after_. Months later. Wow.

‘Ma’am?’ Jarvis draws her attention at some point, but she’s sure it’s no bedtime yet.

‘Mhm?’

‘I’d like to engage protection protocols. Suits on a lockdown for everyone but you, Miss Potts and colonel Rhodes.’

‘Been listening to my conversations again?’ Toni tries to say, but she has a screwdriver between her teeth so it doesn’t come out exactly right, only close enough.

‘I always listen to your conversations, ma’am. Record them, even,’ Jarvis reminds her. These are Toni’s specific requests.

‘Do that,’ Toni tells the A.I. In case S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t understand the message. ‘You’re the sweetest thing, J, always looking out for me.’

‘I’d be more discreet in such declarations, since Dummy or the others could hear you, ma’am.’

‘That wouldn’t end well,’ Toni muses and Jarvis agrees.

On Sunday, Toni finds herself tired after the previous day’s crazy party – no alcohol involved, of course, and nothing more than some kisses and hands all over the bodies, but lots of flirting and jokes and dancing, what was wonderful – making some changes to the core of Mark X designs. And spilling her guts to the A.I. _again._

‘I was thinking, J,’ she states at some point of the afternoon, flickering through voice synthesizing system details.

‘That’s fantastic, ma’am. But you need to be more specific if you want me to read your mind,’ Jarvis replies. Toni manages, by some superhuman power, to keep her face straight. Because – this. Is. A. Serious. Matter.

‘…I was thinking about the name.’

Jarvis doesn’t have a snarky reply for that, point for Toni.

‘Mrs. Wilkers wasn’t able to determine the sex yet –’

‘I _know_ , no need to remind me, baby. But I was thinking, what if I choose a unisex name, I mean, if there is something I like and it has a nice ring to it and it’s applicable to both genders…’

‘What’s the name?’ Jarvis asks, because of course he knows all Toni’s games.

‘… I thought about Alex. You know? It could be Alexander, or Alexandra, shortened, or a dozen of other names, or just by itself –’

‘It sounds fitting, ma’am,’ Jarvis cuts in.

‘Does it?’

‘It does,’ the A.I. replies. ‘Alex Stark.’

And Toni _loves_ the way Jarvis says it. It’s as soft and affectionate as an artificial voice can get, and it makes it all real. Maybe it’s too soon, Toni wonders, but she’s not going to call the baby _it._

For now – she doesn’t have to say it aloud – it’s going to be yet another little secret between her and Jarvis.

***

Before going to bed, with her limbs heavy and a tired smile that seems to be plastered on her face, Toni undresses herself again and stares at the reflection, this time seeing easily the small changes. She’s perfectly aware that she’s put on full two pounds within the week, coming with more frequent lack of nausea and vomiting. But it all seems to be in her belly, because yes, she can see it growing a tiny bit, but definitely there.

It’s a baby.

It’s _breathtaking_.

Toni gets under the shower and spends more time marveling at her body and cleaning up with scented aromatherapy cosmetics that in last five years. She does her own manicure, as much as it’s possible while you’re dealing with motor oil on daily basis, and puts on some nice fancy clothes. It feels a bit like a game instead of real life, but that’s nice.

She’s still not coming out to public before week 20 and Rhodey temporarily taking her place on the Avengers.

Monday is work and more work and a nice supper with Pepper, neutral conversation topics in again, but Toni doesn’t mind much. The CEO stays for the night and leaves to Canada to sign an important contract, so the next morning Toni makes scrambled eggs and they are eaten as quickly as possible, since business can’t wait. Toni goes back to more work, finishing some projects for SI, one little thing for the Helicarrier – she’s going to wait for an appropriate moment to put it into life – and an upgrade for her own storage systems. Mark X is almost ready to be assembled – as soon as two parts arrive from the other side of the country, well, she could make them at home but there is not rush this time – and will be waiting for her in its protected case in the shop, admired and cleaned by Butterfingers.

The next night she goes to a terrible dinner with a bunch of suck-up investors, but they are enthusiastic about the ideas she presents, very presumptuous and brave use of medical robots, so people would trust no one but Toni Stark with that. The investors agree to come by the new California research center in a few weeks to see the prototypes at work.

Soon, the two wayward pieces of tech arrive finally and Toni doesn’t go out of the workshop for 24 hours, taking care to eat properly and napping for a good few hours _twice_. The next evening Mark X is ready, perfect and shiny, the figure slimmer and sturdier, and the whole miracle of new controlling systems invisible but all working. She takes the armor for a test flight, just fifteen minutes around New York since she has a permission to fly out there as much as she wants. Back at the tower, there is celebratory dessert and goes to sleep early.

***

On Thursday Toni is woken up by a sharp pain in her abdomen, and when she gets up she sees blood smeared inside her thighs and all over the bed sheets, so she simply _panics_.

And then everything happens in a quick succession and Toni has no fucking idea what’s going on, and she is not able to keep tracts of the details, she’s only glad that Jarvis is clever enough to call Sheryl and make her come as soon as possible without any indication from Toni’s side.

When Sheryl is there – and it’s probably a miracle that it’s so soon, with the traffic – Toni is sitting on the bathroom floor, cleaned up a bit but feverish and _in pain_ and confused. Her brain feels foggy and spongy  and useless, so she half-registers what the midwife is saying.

Jarvis locks down the medical level, although it’s seven a.m. and no employees are at work yet, save the security team. Sheryl coaxes Toni into getting up and following the woman, she is handed a silk dressing gown that was in the room to cover herself up, and led down to the usual check-up room. Toni can’t feel her legs as she walks so Sheryl keeps her steady. Everything _hurts_.

Sheryl asks her to lay down and Toni obliges. As much as the midwife tries to talk in a steady voice, letting a constant stream of words fly out of her mouth, Toni doesn’t need to hear all that. She recites the pi’s digits but switches to atom mass because it’s too easy, and she gets to selenium before Sheryl gets her attention.

‘I’m sorry, Toni,’ she says and Toni suddenly wants _very much_ to fucking break something, only she is too stunned to move. ‘I need you to focus. We need to think what to do now,’ she says, too.

What is there to do?

Toni doesn’t reply, well, she doesn’t really move, so Sheryl takes a towel and cleans the ultrasound gel of her belly as delicately as possible, but it still hurts, hurts, _hurts_.

‘There is no heartbeat, Toni,’ Sheryl adds in a low voice. ‘I’ll run a blood test in a sec, but there is no way the baby could be alive. I’m sorry. But we need to think about _you_ now.’

Toni still stays silent, mostly because she has no idea what she could even say. Because Alex – the baby – _it_ , whatever –

‘Is there anyone you want me to inform, anyone you want to be with you here?’

Rhodey, she thinks. Pepper. But they are both away. Toni is sure Jarvis told Pepper that something is wrong anyway, and she’s going to be back as soon as possible, and Rhodey is not an option. So she shakes her head for no.

The blood is drawn and soon enough Toni can stare at the results that only confirm what Sheryl said. The midwife explains everything like to a child but Toni doesn’t mind because no, she can’t wrap her head around it. Sheryl asks her some questions, but it’s Jarvis who answers because they are technical and not personal: yes, there is a proper operating room, yes, someone will be sent to collect a doctor, no, Miss Stark hasn’t eaten in the last twelve hours.

There is one thing Toni takes care to understand from what’s going on around, and it’s that with her heart condition it’s not advised to try to deliver the baby naturally, so they will do D&E, she nods numbly to that, knowing that it means she _won’t be able to_ see – to hold the baby. Alex.

Alex is four inches now, and looks like a miniature of a human, Toni knows.

The doctor comes with a nurse, Jarvis shows the people around. They take Toni to the operating room to do things that Toni doesn’t even want to think about because the previous day she stared at the baby and her changing body for half an hour _so happy._ Now, she doesn’t have time to be anything but terrified.

Sheryl says she will stay with her because there is no one else who can, although Jarvis says Pepper is going to be back in ten hours.

***

She’s put under anesthesia and when she wakes up, Toni can feel the baby _gone_ , she can feel the emptiness in her abdomen. She tells them to take away the dead body since she couldn’t bear taking care of it, she just couldn’t – it’s not a human by law, she knows, not yet.

Sheryl is sweet and considerate and stays at Toni’s side almost without leaving the room for the next hours. She cajoles Toni into drinking a smoothie – which surprisingly is ready in the kitchen when the midwife goes to get something to eat for Toni – and asks Jarvis to play some tv show quietly in the background. Toni drifts off to sleep a few times thanks to the pain meds, but never stays asleep for long.

Then Pepper comes storming into the penthouse and talks to Sheryl so fast that Toni can’t follow, the midwife says goodbye and leaves, assuring Toni she’ll come back in a few day to see how she’s doing. Pepper makes a perfect impression of being composed, but Toni knows her too well to believe that.

‘I’m sorry, Toni, oh god I’m _so sorry_ ,’ Pepper says, sitting next to her on the bed. ‘I’m glad that at least you are okay.’

‘I’m okay,’ Toni repeats and laughs. ‘I’m still alive.’

‘I’m very glad,’ Pepper replies, not catching the sarcasm, and hugs her softly before taking her shoes and dress off and slipping into the bed on Toni’s side in her underwear. ‘Sleep.’

Toni nods at her and turns around. She’s glad that Pepper is here, it’s different than being with a stranger no matter how nice they are, but she can’t look the woman in the eyes. She curls into an embryo position instead, as if protecting her sore body, and drifts off to sleep not much later.

In the morning, when she wakes up, the pain is almost gone and Toni can’t believe it’s real. All of sudden – it’s done, it didn’t feel like that the previous day, but now she knows rationally and logically that it’s all done. No plans, no wishes. _No names_.

But she doesn’t cry.

When she goes to shower, she doesn’t give even the shortest look at the mirror. She scrubs the remains of blood form her body, rubbing the skin until it’s raw and red and it hurts under the constant stream of hot water. She is fully aware that there is no scarring, but it doesn’t change her feeling that there should be. There should be a big, ugly scar, impossible to hide, so that the whole world would know that there was supposed to be a baby, but it’s gone. That something went wrong. That her body is broken. It feels wrong that she is unmarred.

Toni puts on her favorite pair of jeans and an old thin t-shirt, arc reactor shining through.

Pepper is in the kitchen, having prepared breakfast or the two of them. It’s waffles with fruit and whipped cream, one of Toni’s, but she’s sure she couldn’t swallow a bit.

As she enters the room, Pepper stand up and gets up to Toni and takes her arm.

‘I’m not handicapped,’ Toni snaps. Pepper lets go of her immediately, not saying anything. Toni knows she shouldn’t be like this, she shouldn’t build walls around herself, but that’s what she’s best at. So they eat in silence, with the news on in the background.

‘I will stay in for a few days,’ she says as neutrally as she can manage. Pepper looks up at her form the papers she was looking at with a frown. ‘Can you?...’

‘I’ll cover for you, Toni. And reschedule everything I can’t. Take – take your time, okay?’

‘Okay,’ she replies with a nod.

Pepper leaves soon and Toni is finally alone.

It’s a hot day, with sunrays seeping through the thin layer of white clouds, making the city look almost as unreal as Toni feels it is. The tower is silent and she can hear each of her breaths, each of her steps echoing in the vast spaces, mixed with a remote buzz of the city and activity downstairs. Everything seems _strange_.

Toni wanders through all the locked-out space, which is a good dozen top floors, and listens to the noises. Tries not to think. But then she can’t, she can’t push this away like she pushes everything else away.

She thinks how she’ll never know the baby’s sex, and will never know if it was Alexander or Alexandra, not that it should matter – she’ll never see the body. She doesn’t regret the decision. It would be too much. She remembers the blanket and swears to burn it, because only that seems appropriate. She tells Jarvis to null all the document drafts she made, to assure that the child would inherit everything and that the father would be stated as unknown in the paperwork. She shuffles her feet, the uncomfortable but not really painful feeling pronounced with every step, and counts the days since she was told she was pregnant. It’s only eight weeks and one day, not even two months, since the day she first met Sheryl.

It’s only eight weeks and one day and it’s unbelievable how much has changed in between.

Pepper texts her at some point – Toni is surprised it’s six in the evening already, she doesn’t feel like any time has passed, she doesn’t even feel hungry even though she ate nothing – and says she won’t be back until nine.

Toni knows she should call Rhodey, but she can’t imagine saying _that_ aloud. She didn’t have to say anything to Jarvis or Sheryl or Pepper, but words would make it more real. It’d be admitting defeat.

She does it anyway, because Rhodey deserves to know.

When he picks up, Toni doesn’t say anything, because suddenly it feels difficult to breathe and not burst into tears and wail.

‘Toni?’ Rhodey asks quietly. She vaguely realizes it’s the middle of the night where he is. ‘Toni? What’s wrong?’

She _almost_ starts to say something, but she can’t. And Rhodey knows, because she never shuts up, right, he told her too many times she doesn’t know when to shut up.

‘The baby…’ she utters in the end, words thick in her throat. Then it’s silence on Rhodey’s end.

‘I shouldn’t be able to come sooner,’ Rhodey states in the end, his voice firm and sure, so different from anyone else’s. Toni needs it like air. He doesn’t have to say anything else. ‘But it’s three weeks – I will try to use any favor that anyone owes me. I’ll call you as soon as I know, anything, okay? Fuck, I will be there sooner. Okay, Toni?’

‘Yes, Rhodey,’ Toni says in a steadier voice. ‘Do you want me to –’

‘No, I’ve got it. You take care.’

‘Right,’ Toni replies and hangs up, crawls into the bed and falls asleep in all the clothes, with summer sun still shining brilliantly.

***

When she wakes up, Pepper is already out. Toni can’t quite believe that she’s slept over fourteen hours straight, without even tossing around sometime in the middle of the night. She stands in the shower for half an hour, until her skin is pink and wrinkled, but she doesn’t feel anything. After she’s dressed, she goes down to the workshop, planning to distract herself with some actual work that she’s supposed to be doing anyway, instead of whining and feeling sorry for herself.

But as soon as she’s down there she knows that it was a bad idea, because there are the two ultrasound pictures staring at her from where she pinned them to the monitor, so she freezes in the doorway. And then the bots roll out of their charging stations and stare – as much as they are able to – at her belly. That’s what they’ve been doing since the motherhood class. It makes Toni want to throw up.

‘There is _nothing_ there, stop this,’ she spats, even though it’s irrational, and she doesn’t do irrational. Then she spins around and runs up the stairs, leaving the confused bots to themselves.

‘Ma’am, I tried to tell them –’ Jarvis starts, but Toni silences him with one wave of her hand.

‘Sure, I can imagine, try explaining them what’s – robots don’t fail like that.’

‘You didn’t _fail_ ,’ Jarvis states firmly, but even his words seem to be empty to Toni. She doesn’t acknowledge them at all – but she has a brilliant idea. And it’s been 48 hours since the – _procedure_. And Toni’s been as responsible as possible.

So she goes to up to the penthouse, moving away from the staircase where she stopped, and straight to the bar. She takes her favorite scotch that she hasn’t tasted for a few months, orders Jarvis to play some angry music and then mutes him, and sits on the soft Persian rug. She drinks her way through the whole bottle, what makes her more drunk than it would normally, after the forced abstinence. She drinks a glass after glass methodically, swirling the amber liquid and staring at the sun playing it its thick swirls in the meantime, and enjoys her mind being amusingly blank.

Then Jarvis speaks up, what he can do only in case of emergency.

‘Captain Rogers made an assemble call,’ he says. Toni can still read between the lines and knows perfectly well what the A.I. doesn’t, but ignores it shamelessly.

This can wait, Toni thinks.

‘Prepare the suit,’ she orders and gets up, holding onto an armchair. Everything swims for a moment, but then she’s steady.

‘Ma’am, your blood alcohol content is surely way over the safe –’

‘ _Jarvis_ ,’ Toni just states, and it’s somewhere between pleading and snarling. The A.I. doesn’t say anything else and the suit is ready when she’s finally up at the landing pad. Jarvis takes over as soon as the armor is on, since she probably couldn’t even fly straight, and Toni wonders why he’d even let her in and break all the protocols, but they are in the middle of a fight too soon for her to consider it. The only thing she does is order Jarvis to shoot, trying to ignore the headache that the shiny and ever-changing interface is giving her.

When the fight is finished, after two full hours, Jarvis flies Toni to Stark Tower without any detours and doesn’t let her listen to the others’ outrage at her insubordination, _again_.

Toni falls asleep on the sofa in the living room, now sure how she managed to get there because she can’t remember anything after getting out of the armor, well, she isn’t sure how she managed to drag herself up in the first place since she hasn’t eaten anything for days, besides the alcohol and the smoothie Sheryl forced into her.

Upon waking up her head is pounding, but that’s it. No nausea and no pain in the abdomen and that is _wrong_ – but she doesn’t let herself think Alex’s name.

Pepper doesn’t even shout at her for doing something so impossibly dumb, she just looks at Toni with this sad compassionate eyes and Toni hates it. And if Fury or anyone else calls, Jarvis breaks the connection.

***

Pepper goes out and a moment later Rhodey text Toni, saying he’s wrapping up the mission and can’t call right now, but he’s managed to persuade his superiors to let him go back earlier and he’ll be there in a week instead of two and a half. Toni tries to reply, but her hands are too shaky, so she asks Jarvis to send the colonel a message saying that Happy will wait for him at the airport.

With CEO gone, taking care of Toni’s business in addition to hers and pretending that Toni just has a flu because that’s what she wants, Toni takes a bottle of some good booze and decides to go to the shop, tear the fucking printouts down and do some drunk engineering, like in her best years at MIT. No getting totally smashed, just pretty tipsy. That has always steadied her hands nicely.

But all of sudden she decides that before going down, she’ll dig the fucking blanket from where she put it and will pack it somewhere. No burning, but she doesn’t want to look at it anytime soon. She finds it in the bathroom, throws it into a black non-transparent bag and puts away where she knows she won’t look.

Just as she’s approaching the elevator to go down, there is phone call. It’s Sheryl, asking how Toni is feeling, if she’s been having any cramps or pain – no, or too much blood loss – no, or fever – no. Toni is glad she didn’t have the drink yet because her speech is perfectly straight and sharp, no slurring on the more difficult words. They set an appointment for the middle of the next week.

Then she finally goes down to the workshop, but when she enters, it’s totally quiet. The floor-to-ceiling windows are not opaque like usually, so the bright early June sunshine falls in boldly, casting thick shadows and making the space fit perfectly in the strange way that everything seems to be like these last few days, as if the time around Toni has stopped, but everyone else went on in the typical crazy pace. She sits down, leaning against the window, feeling the warm sunrays on her back, and plays with the bottle in her hands.

‘I told them not to, but you know how they are, ma’am…’ Jarvis speaks up suddenly, his voice uncharacteristically unsure and soft. Toni frowns, but doesn’t even flinch at the unexpected noise. She feels – too tired for that.

‘Do what?’

Jarvis doesn’t answer, but the three bots come out of the other room, one after another, and stop in front of her. You rolls from behind, since he was the last one, and he puts something in her lap.

It’s a neatly made robot, and she _understands._

It’s– it’s a perfect copy of the one that she showed the bots that time she tried to explain what pregnancy means. _Oh._ She lifts it to take a closer look, even though her limbs feel completely detached.

‘You stupid, stupid, impossible, amazing creatures,’ Toni whispers, realizing that she’s shivering as she keeps staring at the machine in her hands. ‘This is not what I want, wanted, this is nothing like… It’s not alive, it’s not…’ she adds, hearing her voice break and _letting it_. The bots shuffle awkwardly and begin to turn around sadly.

‘I said you are dumb,’ Toni adds, voice thick with tears now, catching their attention. ‘Because you are. But it’s – perfect. You’re the most perfect beings in the world, and humans can never measure up to you. I…’ Then she can’t really continue. ‘Thank you. Thanks.’

Dummy caresses her head as softly as he can, and Toni throws the bottle with booze across the room; it falls down and breaks, making the bots whirl in confusion, but their attention is soon back with her.

Then Toni cries and wails and shouts and whimpers until she can’t breathe, and then starts again.

When Pepper finds her in the shop, it’s almost dark outside and Toni is exhausted and her throat is sore and her whole body aches from the uncomfortable position she spent most of the day in. Pepper eyes the mini robot curiously, but she doesn’t understand, of course she doesn’t, and there is no offer of an explanation.

Toni doesn’t even notice that the printouts are down until the next day, when she finds them both put into a plain envelope and placed in the middle of the big workbench.

***

In the morning Jarvis tells Toni that Fury is livid, and the whole team too, but neither she nor the A.I. really care, it’s not like anyone can come into the tower and do anything when they are not welcome.

Toni spends the next few days working on some projects that she was supposed to present earlier, but it takes so little time that she’s surprised. There is the meeting with Sheryl, who says Toni’s body is doing good. She goes out to two meetings, puts on enough make up to look human-like, tries her usual cocky act that never fails, and gets the contracts for SI. She keeps the windows in the workshop unobscured, since the sun feels – comforting. Just like the bots’ presence, and Jarvis’ considerate words.

Because Toni would like to pretend that she doesn’t hurt, but she _does_ , and she’s surprised by how heart-wrenching it can be. She knew from the beginning that the pregnancy would be difficult, of course, but everything was going so well and it was all so sudden, all so unexpected and terrifying and she knows she’ll be waking up afraid of being smeared with blood for a long time.

She is angry, mad at herself and at the whole world, and embarrassed and glad that the public didn’t know because – she can’t even imagine that, she can’t – she knows she’s still somewhere between shocked and numb, and that it’s perfectly normal, not that the knowledge helps anyhow. She doesn’t say anything aloud, but she’s aware the few around her know, even though she tries not to stare into space and reminisce everything that could have been, everything that she was not aware of for years and years but that suddenly turned her life upside down. She tries not to caress her belly, where Alex _should be_ , but sometimes she just forgets.

Jarvis keeps telling her that it’s only been days, and Toni can’t imagine it being weeks or months. She doesn’t want the pain to fade.

***

And then it’s a week since she talked with Rhodey on the phone – Toni hasn’t been feeling the passage of time right, she’s aware – and Jarvis tells her the colonel will be up in a minute.

When Rhodey comes into the shop, he walks up to Toni and holds her. It’s not romantic at all, they’ve never been romantic despite how Toni flirted with him like with everyone else on regular basis. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her, he just stays there, not staring judgingly or accusingly, not commenting, not saying he’s sorry.

Toni is the one to break the silence.

‘I stated calling it Alex, a week – _before_ ,’ she tells him.

‘Don’t say _it_ , Toni,’ Rhodey orders her firmly and tries to lead her to the sofa, but she steers him away and instead drags him to sit down in her usual spot on the floor, and takes out the baby robot that has been safely tucked into a box by one of the bots.

‘They made it for me,’ she explains with a small smile, because it’s one of the greatest things that anyone has ever done for her.

Rhodey takes the robot in his hands and examines it carefully before putting it back into Toni’s lap with a small smile. He seems to know what it means.

And then Toni cries again, at the beginning ashamed that she does, but Rhodey embraces her and _lets her_. Toni has no idea why, because he didn’t even get the possibility to see her when she was pregnant, didn’t see the baby bump or anything, it was just a  few phone calls – but she thinks Rhodey cries a bit, too.

***

Toni can’t stop counting.

She knows that now – nothing happens, nothing changes. Her body stays the same and everything else should, too, even if it feels like an illusion. By the time Rhodey comes, it’s sixteen weeks. By the time he leaves, it’s seventeen because he managed to bargain for a week of holidays after the few months away that ended with a big success.

During the week, Rhodey helps Toni cook, they watch movies and gossip and do a lot of work. Toni installs the War Machine upgrades and makes specs for yet another set of better quality repulsors that she installs in Mark X. Rhodey doesn’t make her talk and doesn’t impose; Toni wonders if he’s always been like that and she never noticed, or maybe he changed a bit, too, because of her.

She lets him see the printouts from ultrasound, but doesn’t look at them herself, not yet.

The time is calming and pleasant and the world outside seems to reflect it, even though the only time Toni goes out is for a test flight with the new repulsors; Pepper relocates the one meeting Toni can’t skip to Stark Tower, so she only has to take the elevator down. It’s never said aloud, but they let her stay in the space that feels safe.

Rhodey leaves and it’s two weeks _after_ , so Toni has an appointment with Sheryl and the doctor that operated her to check up if everything is healing nicely; apparently it is.

‘That’s good,’ Sheryl concludes at the end of the visit.

‘I wish it weren’t, because I don’t feel better – _how long_ does it take for it to pass? The feelings – even though it didn’t happen in the end –’

It’s probably the only time she purposely makes herself that vulnerable, and the only time she lets herself say it out loud.

‘Don’t say that,’ Sheryl scolds Toni, sweeping her into an embrace. ‘I know you don’t think that. It was your baby, as real as any, sweetheart. And – no matter how much you think you’re prepared for a child, you will be stunned by the capacity you have to love.’

Toni nods, because what else can she do, and lets the woman go. She doesn’t let herself dwell too much on what it means, that the only person she can confide in is a half-stranger, because the rest is either too close or too far away.

Back in the workshop, Toni orders Jarvis to put up the plans of arc rector-powered SI towers in LA and Chicago that still need her approval of the energy distribution before anything else can be done.

For some reasons – psychosomatic, yes, of course – her abdomen aches a bit, and it’s a ghost reminder of the first time she woke up feeling something _there_ , and the fact that she knows she’s perfectly healthy and nothing’s happening makes her so angry.

It’s all – out of control. She is out of control.

‘Let’s get done with this, and give me the reports from R&D for the first half a year, I need to look at them and see the stats. Put them on hologram, pie charts, J,’ Toni orders, sitting by the big desk and drowning the nearest cup of coffee, set down a few minutes before by You. It still feels bitter and burning at her palate that had enough time to grew unused to the flavor.

Sometime later, when it’s dark outside, Jarvis tells her she should stop and eat something, or at least have some rest since she’s been working for six hours without any break at all. Toni frowns at that, because it means it’s the time already when Pepper is out for Europe and she hasn’t realized.

‘I don’t have time for all that,’ she replies, making a vague hand movement meaning nothing in particular, but Jarvis reads between the lines. She’s just running away, and it’s not working because it can’t. ‘There are _important_ things I need to do,’ she adds with the tired anger that’s been boiling inside her for a few days now.

‘Grief is not self-indulgence,’ the A.I. states and Toni pretends to ignore him, but in the end she can’t. Because he’s right. There’s not running away from herself.

So she asks Jarvis to save the changes and goes up, takes a long shower and drinks hot cocoa with the tiniest splash of almond liqueur, and goes to bed. It’s all much easier that she thought it would be. Then she cries herself to sleep and it’s okay, too.

***

Two days later, Rogers makes another call for the Avengers. Toni is kind of surprised they still count her in, but that’s probably because she can fly and they consider her necessary to do the group job at the lowest possible cost, counted in bruises and scrapes.

‘I don’t think you should go,’ Jarvis tells her. It’s the middle of the day but Toni is still in her pajamas, sitting cross-legged on the workshop floor and eating yogurt with a plastic spoon, though her attention is really divided between trying to control what the bots are doing – they are supposed to do tests to a new fabric and record the results – and staring out of the window at the view of New York bathed in sun under her feet.

She's never liked hot and sunny weather, not after Afghanistan, and it’s going to give her a bad feeling again.

‘Prepare the suit, Jarvis. You know what they will be like anyway. I, I need to be out there, like, yesterday –’

‘I don’t care what your team may think, ma’am,’ Jarvis cuts in. ‘You should take your time. Be gentle with yourself.’

‘J, life doesn’t work like that –’

‘It can if you let it, ma’am. And instead, you’re trying to do what everyone expects you to and what you don’t really want. Why do you keep doing that?’

‘They need me,’ Toni replies, putting on the undersuit. The fabric is elastic, so it’s still perfect fit. She tries not to think about it.

‘They won’t share the sentiment and be there when you need them, you know that, ma’am.’

‘I know,’ Toni agrees, keeping her voice steady and doing at her best at being neutral. ‘Let’s fly,’ she adds when the armor is wrapped around her body; Jarvis lets her go on top speed down to the edges of Long Island where some aliens managed to make a makeshift wormhole. Toni is starting to suspect that after the Chitauri, New York’s been made kind of reference point for anyone who tries to invade the earth, because _honestly_.

She checks in with the team down on the ground and gets a two-sentence order.

‘Stark, you want to stay for debrief this time or we’ll be very angry with you,’ Rogers finishes and disappears before she can answer. O-kay.

‘Let’s dance,’ she tells Jarvis and the suit is in the air again, flying gracefully, spinning and somersaulting and swimming between the ugly but well armored aliens, taking them out methodically, one by one, missing nothing. The A.I. lets Toni shoot without calibrating anytime it’s clear a clear shot and there is no danger of someone attacking her in the meantime; it feels good, Toni is almost scared of how great it is to release the anger, to let herself go, to give herself in to the madness; she knows it’s heartless, trying to find a release in killing someone – but they are aliens, and trying to take over the world and already have killed a good few dozen civilians, despite Avengers’ best effort.

It matches perfectly with how inhuman she feels, how _wrong_ she feels – but she’s not going to turn into a villain, mind you, because killing is not pleasant, it’s necessary – and is in perfect opposition to how she has been passive, tired, static.

Maybe she’s just a little insane – but at least it makes her deadly, when she needs to be.

The fight is long, though, and despite being in the suit, she’s exhausted by the end of it. That’s a mixture of battle-weary, sitting around for too long, and not eating enough. Probably. But Toni’s been a good fighter, and it’s as much as counts for now.

After the wormhole is closed, the Avengers deal with remaining aliens; it’s quick and easy and half an hour later they are sitting in debrief on Helicarrier, all still in gear. It’s around midnight by then.

Toni’s in the armor, too, just because she can. She says as little as possible, being detailed and technical in her report and letting Jarvis modulate her voice through Iron Woman helmet instead of streaming her own. Of course, everyone must think it is to annoy them, but the truth is Toni doesn’t feel like keeping her voice strong and steady just for them, she – she hasn’t been too good at that, lately. Unless it’s bullshitting businessmen.

‘You stay, Stark,’ Fury tells her when they finish talking about the mission. Toni looks around and no one is moving away from the table.

‘What is it this time?’ She asks, because honestly, there are a few issues they might have on their minds, and she’s not sure which one the whole deal is about.

‘You disappeared before the debrief last time, and never answered any calls,’ Rogers states, getting up and starting to walk there and back, what is irritating like hell. ‘You’re being irresponsible again and we can’t just let you get away with it.’

‘So what, you plan on kidnapping and torturing me?’ she shots back. It’s easy, she could do it all day, she’s been doing it all her life: Hiding sore spots. Attacking in defense. Lying to herself and everyone around.

‘What was so _urgent_ that you couldn’t come?’ Rogers asks, the rest of the team nodding to that and staring at her questioningly, and Toni is fucking glad they can’t see her face, because it’s – raw.

She doesn’t answer.

‘What, no excuses, Stark?’ Barton quips in. ‘We haven’t seen your pretty face in the gossip rags either, why, are you hiding away?’ (Toni can stay calm, please, she can, just breathe, okay?) ‘Or maybe trying to hide _something_ from the world?’

She can stay calm and act responsible, she really can, she tells herself although she wants to strangle them all or go away and never fucking come back, but she can stay calm – _breathe_.

But – a fraction of second later, though it feels like ages – Roger’s eyebrows shoot up in a polite questioning way, and then Romanov and Hill share a small but obvious smirk.

And then Toni can’t do it.

She wasn’t planning on telling them, not yet, because it’s like rubbing salt in a wound, it’s feelings that make her vulnerable. They said that at the beginning, didn’t they, that she is not fit to be a mother, and they were _right_ , and it’s embarrassing and maddening and –

Don’t. Say. Alex.

‘The baby’s _gone_ ,’ she snaps, getting up. ‘Are you satisfied now?’ she adds fiercely and gives them a long look – they look impasse, besides Banner who is frowning; Romanov and Hill, the two fucking bitches, hold her gaze in a perfect _I told you so_ impression and it hurts so much that Toni thinks they can’t, can’t be human – then she storms out of the room, disregards any kind of safely regulations and flies through the corridors to the usual exit, letting Jarvis navigate, and when she’s out in the air she can finally breathe.

When Toni’s back at the tower, Jarvis takes the armor off her, then she peels off the undersuit, discards it somewhere and goes straight into the shower.

‘Music, Jarvis,’ she orders quietly, standing in the middle of the rain-like flow. ‘Something loud,’ she adds. Between the water encompassing her body and deafening Deep Purple’s songs she can pretend she’s not crying again.

She’s not sure how, but she doesn’t throw up although she feels like it, remembering the _team_ ’s stares, and she falls asleep on the sofa, covered with fluffy terry bathrobe.

***

The sun wakes Toni up, it’s warm rays crawling up her bare calves. The penthouse is filled with a scent of coffee and when she sits up, she notices there is a steaming mug sitting on the table; she grabs it and takes a sip: it’s perfect, with the exact amount of brown sugar and a splash of cream, like she loves.

In the light of the day yesterday seems – like a bad dream.

She gets up and walks across the room barefoot, feeling the cold marble with every square inch of her exposed skin, then goes down to workshop, still with the mug in one hand, taking an occasional sip.

The bots are working already, still testing the new fabric since they are supposed to do that until it breaks or until it’s definite that they are not able to make a tear. They look at her as she goes inside, but soon turn around and keep doing their jobs for once.

Toni takes a few breathes but then decides that no, she’s not going to be the coward that everyone takes her for, so she walks up to the main desk, digs out the envelope and leaves the shop quickly. She goes up, sits on the floor in a puddle of sunlight that feels good and indecent at the same time, and takes the two pictures out.

‘Ma’am, the bots are sending me queries about your well-being,’ Jarvis states when she traces the edges of photographs with her fingers and takes in the tingling sensation. Of course the bots would, she thinks, that’s me who coded them, no?

‘I’m all right,’ she replies, not taking her eyes off the pictures.

‘I will tell them that, ma’am, but we both know this is a lie.’

‘You are so blunt, J.’

‘I learned from the best,’ the A.I. replies immediately.

‘I told them yesterday I lost the baby – Alex – and… I can’t believe I did. I wasn’t ready, I’m not ready now, would I ever be ready, J? I don’t want them to know. I don’t want everyone to know.’

‘I – I don’t know what to say, ma’am,’ Jarvis replies, making Toni close her eyes and smile a little.

‘I don’t want to ever have to go out from here,’ Toni continues. ‘I don’t want to look at them. I don’t want them to look at me – anyone. And they will, they will all stare because they always do.’

‘I wish I could help you somehow, ma’am.’

‘You already have,’ Toni tells the A.I. before putting the photos back into the envelope and leaving it on her lap; it gives her an irrational burning feeling. She doesn’t get up until the sun moves and she starts to feel cold.

***

Week eighteen and she’s at 150% with SI work. Pepper comes by every day for at least a few minutes, but usually they spend at least one or two hours eating and arguing over the paperwork, like they used to before. The meetings are still taking place in the Tower exclusively and no one has seen Toni Stark out in some time, but she just has Jarvis cut her off from the gossip and it’s easy.

Pepper tries to tell her she should go out, but Toni changes the subject each time and after a few attempts the CEO stops.

Jarvis doesn’t, though, because he knows Toni better.

‘I understand you wanting to stay in a safe place, ma’am,’ he says. ‘Because it’s a controlled space. But it’s not healthy and you are well aware of it, since you’re a genius. I know they –  hurt you, ma’am. I know you don’t want to let them again, and I don’t want to see you hurt again either. But you could also be avoiding the good things,’ Jarvis replies.

‘You’re right,’ Toni says pensively. Of course she’s known that, but only _known_.

***

Week nineteen (almost a month) and she calls Rhodey, asking him if he thinks he could find time to meet up with her one evening. He says he’ll be there the next day at seven. Toni thinks it’s awfully easy but doesn’t complain.

‘I need you to take me away from here,’ she says without saying hello and she can see understanding flashing in Rhodey’s eyes. He calls Happy and soon they are in one of the more subtle retro clubs, with a man playing the piano rather than pole strippers. He makes her eat more food than she thought she could manage, and lets her get pleasantly drunk in a perfectly controlled way, with enough water drunk in the meantime that she knows she won’t even be hung-over on the morning.

It’s okay. It’s normal.

Maybe she can still do normal, Toni thinks when Rhodey puts her to bed.

In the morning he is gone, so she spends the day working on Mark X, because she suddenly has some brilliant ideas. Jarvis doesn’t comment, but Toni knows he’s pleased that she listened to him.

That evening she lets herself look at her own body closer that a flicker of a reflection; she undresses in the bathroom and stands in front of the mirror. She knows she lost the pounds that it took her months to gain within two weeks. She feels wrong in the body anyway because it shouldn’t be like this, she should be – growing. Along with Alex.

But Alex will always stay her tiny baby, yes, she avoids pronouns on purpose.

She keeps the shower brief and sneaks under the soft blankets that wait for her on the bed. She calls Rhodey, cries to the phone without telling him what brought it on, and falls asleep to Jarvis playing some soft music in the background.

In the morning she finds Rhodey sitting by the table and eating a tuna sandwich.

‘What are you doing here, buttercup? Saved some food for me?’ she asks, circling around the big kitchen isle and walking up to the coffee machine.

‘Jarvis has some waffles saved for you.’

‘Saved?’ Toni wonders, leaning against the counter and running hand through her hair, suddenly noticing that it’s gotten long since she hasn’t cut it in a few good months.

‘Pepper was here earlier, but didn’t want to wake you up.’

‘I think I don’t get something here,’ Toni states, taking the mug with her drink impatiently and adding her usual. ‘Why was Pepper here?’

‘She wanted to check up on you, but it wasn’t necessary –’

‘What Colonel Rhodes is trying not to tell you, ma’am, is that yesterday night there was an assemble call from the Avengers but I decided not to let you know and notified the colonel instead, and he took part in the fight instead of Iron Woman.’

 _Oh_ , Toni thinks, now they are going to have her fucking head, thinking she’s hiding –

‘I made sure they knew why it was me and not you, Toni,’ Rhodey cuts through her thoughts. ‘We had a few words. They will apologize –’

‘I don’t want any apologies! And I – I told you I could do my own fights!’

‘I know you can, Toni, but I’m not going to let you if you get hurt in the process – no, I don’t want to hear anything from you. I _won’t_ see you hurt like that. Jarvis told me what happened, why the hell would you let them act like that? Let them behave like they did?’

Toni puts the mug back on the counter and looks away sharply, but doesn’t answer.

‘I thought so,’ Rhodey states. ‘You really are a moron, Toni – you believed them, right? That you don’t deserve a child. That you are not fit to be a parent.’

‘Apparently _mother nature_ thinks so, too,’ Toni spats angrily, because anger is better than breaking down again, again, she should have started to move on by now, right? She should have.

‘I know it’s hard to believe, Toni, but – it’s not the end of the world. I know I shouldn’t say that, hell, it’s probably in all the _how not to behave_ manuals. I know it hurts, I can’t imagine how much, I can’t even begin to fathom, but I’ll be with you for as long as you need, even if it’s months, years. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Toni says, because what else can she do.

‘It will pass,’ Jarvis adds, his voice so soft again, it gives Toni shivers. ‘You will heal.’

‘…I know,’ she says after a short pause, reassuring them both, and maybe herself, too.

‘Do you think you will want another child?’ Rhodey asks softly, voicing the question that Toni’s been asking herself for a long time, but she knows the answer by now.

‘No,’ she declares firmly. ‘No, I won’t.’

Later that day she takes out the pictures and pins them to the fridge, just like in all the movies, so that she can look at them whenever she wants.

***

Week twenty is when she finally gets out on her own. She goes to hairdressers, cuts her hair short, buys some comfortable pretty clothes and puts them on, together with big sunglasses, and wanders aimlessly around the city. No one recognizes her. She smiles at all the pregnant women and mothers with children, even if it’s a quick sharp pain every time, and discovers they almost always smile back.

The outside is – overwhelming, there is so much going on, with all the people and noises and scents and colours mixed, with all the activity and happiness and despair and love and hate. It seems to different here that from above.

It might be the good things, Toni thinks, smiling as she remembers Jarvis’ words.

She buys herself ice cream, walks along the streets as the sun slowly sets, reflected in skyscrapers’ surfaces and shining into everyone’s eyes, going lower and lower. Toni goes back home when the streets are filled with night’s ocean-scented chilly air that make her shiver.

***

Week twenty two, there is another assemble call and she lets Rhodey go again; twenty five and Toni goes herself and kicks asses of some villains as effectively as ever, or maybe a little better since Mark X is amazing. She goes to debrief out of the armor, wearing her usual outfit that hugs her thin frame nicely.

No one can look her in the eye. Hill walks out of the room when she sees Toni. Rogers and Banner apologize stiffly, clearly uncomfortable; she nods at them without a word, keeping her blank face unchanged. Barton looks a bit like he might throw up. Romanov – she meets Toni’s gaze for a few seconds, before hanging her head and it’s as close to shame as Toni has ever saw from the woman.

Fury says nothing, but he does tell her _good job_ , it’s more than he’s ever done to acknowledge Toni’s help.

It doesn’t mean Toni can forgive them, but she’s not running away. It’s her responsibility to save the world, in the end.

Week thirty, they are called in again and Barton asks if they could talk. Toni is tired and all achy, since she’s been tossed around in the suit a few times; she thinks it might be concussion speaking or something, but she agrees.

‘I don’t know why you even want to talk to me,’ he starts. Toni raises her eyebrows. ‘I don’t think I deserve the right to apologize. And I will understand if you hate me.’

‘I could say: _I know you didn’t really mean that_ and it would make things easier,’ Toni replies. ‘I think you did.’

‘I –’ Barton start, but she doesn’t let him finish.

‘It would be okay if it was all about me, Barton, because I’m aware what I’ve been like all my life – but it wasn’t, more than about me it was about Alex –’

Oh _fuck_ , she didn’t mean to say the name, no one is supposed to know but the few people – it’s time to retreat, it seems.

‘So maybe, maybe I might forgive you – you all – who knows, but it’s going to take a long, long time,’ she adds and basically runs away.

***

Week thirty one, Pepper lets herself throw a tantrum and shout at Toni, calling her names and despairing; when she notices what she’s done she starts to apologize, but Toni is _laughing_. Pepper gets the hint, understanding that it’s okay to be – like before, now, that Toni is ready. The CEO calls her a lot of things during the next week, Toni talks back, and Jarvis gets a tad more snarkier than he’s been recently, too.

Week thirty four, Jarvis asks her to fly by the 5th Ave Mansion as she’s testing another new gadget for Mark X. Toni does what he wants, because she’s used to the A.I.’s strange ideas. It’s evening, so the city lights flicker before her eyes as the armor heads for the location –

There are candles in all of the Mansion’s windows.

‘What is it all about, J?’ Toni asks, hovering it the air for a few seconds – and apparently, it’s enough for someone to notice, since a second later she has an adhesive arrow stuck to the middle of her helmet; she unsticks it from the armor and notices there is a little box attached to it.

‘It’s October 15th, ma’am. I believe it’s also Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.’

Toni freezes inside the suit.

‘Take me home, J,’ she commands, giving the candlelit house last long look.

There is a bracelet in the box, Toni can tell it’s handmade: simple silver one made of tiny rings connected to an oval plaque with _Alex_ engraved onto it, in a sloppy and cute way. She puts it on, lights a candle herself and stays up the night in the workshop, with Dummy and You and Butterfingers and the mini bot, letting Jarvis technobabble for hours and laughing a bit hysterically at his witty comments.

***

Week thirty seven, there is a particularly gruesome and exhausting fight and Helicarrier is damaged in the process, so it’s drifting into a hidden dock somewhere and Toni invites the Avengers to the tower instead, because it can provide hot water to clean all the blood off, some good food, and enough space for everyone to sleep. It’s the second step in the truce dance.

Toni knows they stare at the printouts on the fridge as Jarvis is in the process of making hot cocoa for everyone, but no one mention anything. Toni is glad.

Week thirty nine is cold and snowy already, and Toni misses the sun. It’s more difficult to _remember_ now, when everything around looks so different.

‘This is the only proof that Alex was ever real,’ Toni tells Jarvis as she stares frozen at the photos, stunned by the fact that all the time has passed already, and at the thought that things are – getting better.

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ Jarvis replies.

Something clicks in Toni’s head and a wide radiant smile crawls across her face.

***

Week forty, Toni cries so much.

She doesn’t need to _let herself_ do that anymore.

And then she spends the day with Rhodey and Pepper, since they both have arranged to have it off. They watch movies, play virtual games with Jarvis in the shop, and pet the mini bot. They eat dinner, get just a tiny bit drunk on girly cocktails, and talk. They laugh.

Then Toni says she did something, a few days ago, because it felt wrong to be unmarred; all this time has passed and she still freaks out at staying – unchanged. She pulls up the t-shirt and shows them a small tattoo on her lower abdomen that’s just four letters, _a_ and _l_ and _e_ and _x_. They smile because Toni smiles, too, a little sadly maybe, but it’s okay.

Week forty, she should be sweaty and tired and dirty, holding a bloody baby to her chest and breathing easily for the first time in weeks. She isn’t. Life goes on.

Toni thinks that sometime, she will be ready to say this in front of everyone: _I lost a baby, too. Alex. And – I know you can never forget, but you_ can _heal._

 

 

 

 

_Look around it, have you found it_

_Walking down the avenue?_

_See what it brings,_

_could be good things_

_In the air for you._  

**Author's Note:**

> This was the most time consuming and emotional and difficult piece I have written so far, since I tried my best to approach the subject professionally and delicately, doing a lot and some more reading and thinking, thinking, thinking. I hope you enjoyed reading.
> 
> The music that the quotes come from:  
> beginning: [ the velvet underground - ride into the sun ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHdH3bAsgU8)  
> ending: [ neil young - there's a world](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVH8tNWJBk)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you all for reading.


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